The European Commission, Britain and the Pound

Ralph Shell submits: Now that the European Commission had dealt with the spendthrift Greeks, their attention has shifted to Britain. The Times Online reported this morning:"The Commission is due to release its latest assessment of Britain’s plans to reduce the deficit tomorrow, but a leaked draft makes uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor. It states: “The fiscal strategy in the convergence programme is not sufficiently ambitious and needs to be significantly reinforced. "A credible timeframe for restoring public finances to a sustainable position requires additional fiscal tightening measures beyond those currently planned.”Complete Story »

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Ralph Shell submits: Last year the Budget Day analysis provided by Alistar Darling to the House of Commons was bleak, and the pound sterling took an immediate tumble. Then, the time frame for an economic recovery was conjecture, and perhaps a weaker pound was part of medicine needed to stimulate a recovery.

Ontario’s deficit is set to drop by $1 billion over forecasts in the 2015 budget, despite lower-than-expected economic growth.
The budgetary shortfall for the 2015/16 fiscal year will fall to $7.5 billion from the $8.5 projected by Finance Minister Charles Sousa in his April budget. Ontario’s real gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow just 1.9 per cent this year, according to Sousa’s mid-year fiscal update released Thursday. That’s down 0.8 percentage points from the 2.7 per cent projected in the budget.

Twitter results were released early and the stock crashed. Twitter's revenue hit $436 million (£284.16 million), missing expectations for $456 million, according to estimates from Bloomberg. Twitter stocks closed down -18%.